


sundown showdown

by Snowsheba



Series: grand theft aveyond [2]
Category: Aveyond, Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Aveyond Winter Exchange 2019, Gen, also there's a bit of blood but nothing graphic, there's lot of banter though!, this is going to be long. i'm sorry. i tried to write something short and sweet and failed.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:06:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22395244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowsheba/pseuds/Snowsheba
Summary: It's over: Ahriman is dead, and so are the rest of his cronies. Rhen and Lars have a chokehold on the city and rule as its underground royalty. Boyle’s got a job with excellent coworkers and excellent pay, and he's having the time of his life.And then a vampire approaches him with a problem.
Relationships: Boyle Wolfbane & Ingrid (Aveyond), Boyle Wolfbane & Rowen (Aveyond), Te'ijal Ravenfoot & Galahad Teomes
Series: grand theft aveyond [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1611913
Comments: 9
Kudos: 6





	1. let's get this show on the road

**Author's Note:**

> for danin! i. i am sorry if this is not what you were anticipating. i wasn't either.
> 
> can be read without reading the previous part of this series, but reading the first will make this one make more sense. again, i am VERY sorry.

It’s quiet in Boyle’s apartment for once: Fang is running around with Ean somewhere, Ingrid’s out cavorting with her coven, Myst took her brother to the modern art museum, and Rhen and Lars gave him the next two weeks off from duty. It’s an excellent time for him to talk with his old wizard buddies and catch up on all the magical theory he’s been shirking in favor of, oh, you know, taking down Ahriman, and he’s doing just that by melting into his armchair and watching television.

He’s a simple man, okay? Yes, he’s a retired supervillain—the closest a villain had ever come to taking over the world, actually, thank you very much, but still retired—and he’s capable of weaving the darkest forces into doing his bidding, and he’s devilishly handsome and has good taste to boot, but he’s a simple man nonetheless, and he’s having a good day watching the news anchor tell him about his crew’s latest crime. Unless all hell breaks loose, nothing’s going to change the fact that Boyle the Horrible, contrary to his name, is having an excellent day.

And then there’s a knock on his door.

* * *

“No solicitors,” Boyle says when he opens the door. He blinks when he sees it’s Te’ijal and glances at the clock; it’s mid-afternoon and she’s looking a little fried. Literally: the tips of her fingers are ashen and cracked. “Should you be outside right now?”

“I need your help,” Te’ijal says instead of answering his very reasonable question. She looks pissed.

“I said no solicitors,” Boyle says, closing the door. Te’ijal’s hand flashes out and he barely dodges out of the way when it slams open against the wall with a rattle, and he says plaintively, “did you have to do that? We just got new wallpaper.”

“I need your help,” Te’ijal repeats.

“Ingrid’s not here,” Boyle says, crossing his arms. Ingrid would also kill him if she knew he was using her as an excuse to not to help a friend, but hey, she’s not here to stop him. “And Myst isn’t, either. Go somewhere else.”

“ _Your_ help, Boyle,” Te’ijal says, eyes narrowing to slits. Boyle gulps. “Myst has already been informed. And I don’t want Ingrid’s help.”

It is extremely lucky Ingrid isn’t here, Boyle thinks, because at those words, she would turn Te’ijal into a frog. In the meantime, he sighs and says, “Let me grab my cloak,” and doesn’t stop her when she follows him inside.

* * *

Te’ijal assembles her strike team in what is presumably her apartment. Boyle’s never been here before or ever heard of it, but there are blackout curtains drawn across every window and lit candles are scattered everywhere. It’s a fire hazard. He knows the sacrifices one must make in the name of aesthetics, but by the way Myst is eyeing the door, she’s figuring out where to go when everything starts burning.

Galahad is here, too. Boyle had never liked him: too righteous, and too righteously convinced that he was righteous. And because he wore full plate armor that sparkled in the candlelight for no reason other than clinging to his paladin-ness. No one wore armor these days, not when Gauss shields existed, and Galahad was a vampire besides. There’s no point to it all, and Boyle keeps his mouth shut about it.

“So glad you could all make it,” Te’ijal says, like she hadn’t bodily dragged each and every one of them back to her abode. “You’re probably all wondering why you’re here.”

Boyle glances around. John, across from him and sprawled out on the couch, looks like he just woke up from a nap. Myst’s brother is nowhere to be seen, which means he’s back with their mother; Myst, consequently, looks bored. Te’ijal looks weirdly pleased with all the proceedings, and Galahad looks like he’d just been carved from a block of marble.

“Do we have to guess?” Myst asks after the silence stretches.

“Yes,” Te’ijal says. “I’m not expecting any of you to guess correctly, but it’s honestly not any fun unless—”

“It’s sunblock,” Galahad interrupts flatly. “She ran out of sunblock.”

“Dumpling,” Te’ijal says, with all the venom of a cobra about to strike. Galahad shrugs, and Boyle connects the dots between her general ashy-ness and the sun gently descending in the sky.

“You made Rhen and Lars give me two weeks off to help you get _sunblock_?” John says, looking very much he would rather still be napping.

“Can’t you just buy SPF 30 at the convenience store?” Boyle says in agreement. “I have better things to do.”

“Evil things?” Myst asks knowingly.

“The evilest,” Boyle promises. He briefly reflects on the fact that Ingrid isn’t here to turn both of them into frogs and adds, “So evil that it’ll curdle your blood.”

“Blood can’t curdle,” Galahad says stoically. “Believe me, I would know.”

“How?” John asks.

“ _Hey_ ,” Te’ijal says loudly before Galahad can answer. The way she says it makes everyone shut up. “I can’t just buy sunblock, Boyle, it doesn’t work for vampires unless it’s been magicked properly. And the Oracle has a monopoly on that market now ever since Ahriman died,” and here Boyle sighs while Myst groans, “so I would appreciate if you all could pay attention to me in my desperate time of need.”

“Question,” John says. “What’s the Oracle?”

“Who,” Boyle corrects. He grimaces. “She’s this wrinkled old woman in the Northern Isle district who deals in prophecies and fortunes. And magicked sunblock, apparently.”

John looks around the room. He must see something similar on all of their faces, because he says, “You’ve all met her?”

“She’s fine,” Myst says, in the tone of someone who had just stepped in a puddle wearing only their socks. “She’s just weird. Very weird.”

“In a bad way,” Boyle says.

“No,” Myst says. She hesitates when Boyle raises an eyebrow at her. “Well, maybe a little. She’s very black and white about things.”

“And why do we need the Oracle to get sunblock? We have mages,” John says. “Just get Lars to make some.”

“Lars is a necromancer,” Te’ijal says.

“So?”

Galahad mutters something under his breath with absolutely no change in expression. Te’ijal says, “Necromancers aren’t enchanters, John. Don’t be an imbecile.”

“Born and raised,” John says without moving. “Excuse me for asking stupid questions, I guess.”

“We need the Oracle because she’s so withered and old that she’s mastered, like, every form of magic in existence,” Boyle says. He knows this because she’d once held him up by the ankles and told him so, back when she and Rhen had been on good terms. “She’s a very good enchanter. The best. Possibly the only.”

“She _is_ the only,” Te’ijal says. “Believe me, I checked. She’s driven out all the local enchanters out of town.”

“Can’t we just go out of town to buy some, then?” John says.

“I have two weeks, not two months.”

“Gods, ex _cuse_ me for asking stupid questions.”

“Why can’t you go up and talk to her?” Myst asks. She looks to Boyle. “We know where she lives, so why don’t we just ask?”

“Yes, because we know how well that went last time,” Boyle says, glaring at her. Myst grins. John looks mystified, and since Boyle doesn’t feel like explaining how a faerie cursed him to have horrible luck until he ponied up his life savings when he saw the Oracle last, he turns back to Te’ijal. “She’s right, though. Usually you can just go up to her and she’ll give you a prophecy because she hates you and wants you to leave.”

“She’s changed her policy recently,” Te’ijal says, looking both pained and impatient. “Only the good of heart can enter her domain.”

“And you asked _us_?” John says immediately, this time with considerably more ire than before. Boyle is inclined to agree. “Us? Good of heart? _Us_?”

Te’ijal begins, “Of everyone in our crew, you all seemed the most likely to know someone—”

“Oh, but not Iya and Ean,” John says. “Clearly it’s up to _us_ to—”

“I know someone!” Myst chirps, and everyone turns to stare.

* * *

“This is Robin!” Myst says, clinging to Robin’s arm. Robin, a blue-eyed blond who’s barely in his twenties, lifts a hand to wave. He’s got a cross emblazoned on his right shoulder, which means—

“Oh, gods, a crusader,” Boyle mutters. Te’ijal makes a noise of agreement from behind him. “You know how to pick them, Myst.”

“Watch it, Boyle,” Myst snaps, looking very much like a cat about to pounce. Boyle doesn’t care. She wouldn’t hurt him, not really.

“Watch _him_ , Myst. Crusaders would smite me to itty-bitty pieces in a heartbeat if they could.”

“I’m just a squire,” Robin says unhelpfully, and he frowns when they all groan.

* * *

“Since the Oracle is across town, I took the liberty of finding us a mechanic,” Galahad says. “You’re welcome.”

“I know how to hotwire a car,” John says.

“I know.”

“So do I,” Myst says.

“I know.”

“But that’s illegal,” Robin says. “Why would you ever hotwire a car? What if you get caught?”

Te’ijal lets out a short, sharp huff through her teeth. Boyle shoots her a look, and she mouths _you were right_ to him before she says, “Look, if we have to be good, we’re not going to get in by driving up in a stolen car. We have to play this completely by the book.”

“This is the worst!” Boyle exclaims. “This is the absolute worst!”

“What’s the worst?” someone else says, coming up behind Galahad and stopping next to him. It’s an elf. She looks bright-eyed and sharp, like someone had tried to mug her and gotten their nose broken instead.

“We hate obeying laws,” John says to the elf, to which Robin gasps. Everyone ignores him. “And apparently you’re here to help us obey them. Where’s the car?”

“Out front,” the elf says coolly. She looks at all of them, and then her eyes settle on Boyle and she says, “Wow. Haven’t seen you in a long time. What have you been up to?”

“Do I know you?” Boyle says. He thinks he would have remembered someone like this. Then again, he forgot where he hid Fang’s stash of dog treats last week, so who can say.

“No,” the elf says. “It’s just the last time I saw you was on television when you were arrested. I’m Rowen, by the way.”

“I don’t like you,” Boyle declares. John laughs.

“Fine with me,” Rowen says, giving him a lazy salute. Myst is grinning in a way that screams _danger_ ; Boyle feels unexpectedly cornered, but there’s nowhere to run. He doesn’t even have Fang with him. “Are we leaving now? The sun’s not completely set yet.”

“Let us wait a bit, then,” Galahad says. Aside from the brief escapade to fetch Robin, they’ve all been trapped in this apartment for the past five hours, and at the collective sounds of frustration, Galahad sighs and says, “I will make tea and coffee and bring cookies. Please go sit.”

“Ah, bribery! Now that’s a language I speak,” John says, doing a fancy little two-step into the sitting room. Myst tugs Robin along with her, and grudgingly Boyle follows. So does Rowen. Te’ijal follows Galahad to their shared kitchen, and they all arrange themselves in various positions around the living area. Boyle wants to leave, but he’s too afraid of Te’ijal to try.

“So, Rowen,” John says. “What’s your story?”

“My story?” Rowen says. “Didn’t realize I had to have one.”

John’s always been like this for as long as Boyle has known him: quick, snappy, witty. It’d almost been the death of him a couple of times, but it hadn’t stopped him from doing it again and again, and Boyle would almost find it annoying if he didn’t ask the questions or say the things Boyle never dared to voice. Like now, when John says, “If you know Galahad, you did something bad and needed him to get you out. That’s kind of what he does. So go on, spill.”

Rowen frowns, dropping onto the couch next to Myst and Robin. Boyle would gladly sit on a bed of nails if it meant he didn’t have to sit next to a Crusader, even if he was a squire; going by the way John was seated on the floor, he feels the same way. “That hardly seems fair. I’ve only just met you.”

“I lost my eye after I killed human traffickers,” John says without missing a beat. Rowen blinks, and John points to Boyle and says, “Take a guess as to why he’s not in jail.”

“How should I know?” Rowen says, and at John’s finger waggle, she says irritably, “Inherent corruption in the system?”

“Oh, please, we know that’s a given,” Boyle huffs. Rowen rolls her eyes. “No. I did something completely against my nature and killed another villain that was about to destroy the city. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Why wasn’t there any news coverage?” Rowen asks as Robin gasps in the backgrounds.

“You said it yourself,” Te’ijal says, stepping over John’s legs to drop to the carpet next to him. “Inherent corruption in the system. I’m a vampire.”

“And I’m a mist sprite! I helped Boyle kill a bad guy who kidnapped my brother,” Myst chirps, giving Rowen a smile with too many sharp, pointy teeth. She’s adorable, she really is, but Boyle is also quite aware that she is the most dangerous person in this room. “Who are you?”

“I’m Rowen,” Rowen deadpans, and holds up her hands defensively when John, Te’ijal, and Myst start clamoring all at once. “Kidding! Kidding. Not about my name, I mean, just—okay, anyway.” She clears her throat. “My husband—”

“Tea, coffee?” Galahad says, placing said drinks on the center table. Boyle hates vampires and how quietly they move. Boyle hates Galahad especially, because he’s wearing plate armor and yet still walks soundlessly. “Pour your own cup. And take some cookies. I baked them last night.”

* * *

“So you left your husband and son in Delamere because you wanted adventure, and the best way to find adventure was to willingly sign on to be a person’s slave,” Boyle says. Rowen nods. Her expression is a cross between frustrated and embarrassed, and Boyle throws his hands up in the air and says to the ceiling, “Good people are unbelievably stupid. _Unbelievably_.”

“That’s so sad,” Myst says, ignoring Boyle entirely. He’s used to that by now. “When was the last time you saw Riley? He must miss you terribly.”

“Two years, give or take a couple of months,” Rowen says. She looks wistful. “He’s turning three in a few weeks.”

This, Boyle knows, is enough to scratch at Myst’s itch for helping people. This itch is surprisingly not at odds with what they do under Rhen and Lars’s guidance, as demonstrated when Myst coos and turns back to the group to say, “We should help Rowen go back home to her family in time for her son’s birthday!”

“What? No,” John says, ever the voice of reason. Until he addresses Rowen, that is, and says, “Unless you’re paying us?”

“I don’t have any money,” Rowen says with a shrug. “Being a slave to a fake mage doesn’t pay well, as it turns out, and this sunblock thing is a pro bono gig. It’s my problem to deal with anyway, not yours.”

“How do you have a car, then?” Boyle asks. “If you didn’t pay for it.”

“I did,” Galahad says, arms crossed, back ramrod straight.

“You? Spend money?” Boyle says, trying not to sound too aghast. Galahad shoots him a withering look.

“Will you buy me a car, too?” John says.

“No.”

John rolls his eye and leans back against the coffee table with a huffed _I hate this fucking family._ Robin says, “Why do you hotwire cars if you just buy them usually?”

“ _Ugh_ , gods,” Te’ijal says, hoisting herself to her feet, “it’s dark out, let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” Robin asks, getting up with Myst does, and when no one answers him as they file out the door, he says, “Um, thanks for the cookies, I think?”

“You’re welcome,” Galahad says. Boyle exchanges a look with John and they both shake their heads.

* * *

The Oracle’s gone up in the world, as it turns out. Boyle can’t help the whistle when they pull up to the address: where once had been a rickety old shack is now a sprawling mansion, complete with frivolous gardens and lavish décor. There’s a party going on, too, going by the amount of well-dressed people walking around, and also by the doorperson stopping them at the gate and asking them in a flat drone, “Invitation?”

There’s a brief tussle where Robin is shoved to the front of the group. He’d been coached extensively in the car, and Boyle holds his breath as he clears his throat. “We’re here to see the Oracle to make a purchase?”

The doorperson, a small faerie armed with an equally small lance, gives them a stare that suggests she’d rather be anywhere than here right now. Then she says again, “Invitation?”

Robin, thrown off-script, says, “Do we need one to purchase something from the Oracle?”

“Get out of line,” the faerie says, lifting a hand that begins to sparkle and glow with magic.

Boyle hustles his way out; he’s not getting cursed again. Te’ijal asks, “Where do we get an invitation?”

“Get out of line,” the faerie repeats, and that’s the last warning she gives before Boyle watches his party unceremoniously trip and stumble out of the way of the guests behind them. Myst is the only one who doesn’t actually fall flat on her face, light on her feet as she is, and she kneels down to help Robin up as John groans and Te’ijal rolls over and sits up.

“Is anyone injured?” Galahad asks. He had somehow not fallen either, apparently, or he had done so in a manner that hadn’t smudged his armor or made any sound. Again, Boyle despises him. “No? Good,” he says. “Rowen, would you give me the keys? I’ll get the car.”

“We have to figure out how to get an invitation before we leave,” Te’ijal says. She hooks her elbow through John’s, pulling him along so hard he almost falls again. “Meet back at the car in ten.”

“Aye aye,” Myst says, leading Robin in the opposite direction.

Boyle looks at Rowen. Rowen looks at him. He clears his throat and says, “Do you want to split up—”

“I saw how you freaked when that faerie put her hand up,” Rowen says. “Let’s stick together for your sake, old man.”

“Gods, you sound like Mel,” Boyle grumbles, but he follows her when she starts walking anyway.

* * *

The Aveyond district is constantly changing to keep up with new trends. It’s better funded now too, apparently, though that may be a direct consequence of the Oracle making bank. Either way, Boyle feels intensely out of place among the socialites walking along in the streets, and both he and Rowen get a lot of looks.

He’s also pretty sure they were only supposed to roam around the Oracle’s manor for ten minutes, but what can he say? He got bored, Rowen was bored too, they ended up in Aveyond’s shopping district, it’s been half an hour. It happens. Things happen. Such as Rowen stopping yet another random person in the street and asking, “How do you get invited to the Oracle’s parties?”

Like the rest of the times Rowen had tried this, the person scoffs. Unlike the rest of the times, though, they don’t walk away, and they say, “You have to be good, for one thing. That companion of yours is an insult to us all with the clothes he’s wearing.”

“Hey, skulls are fashionable,” Boyle says without much heat. He’s gotten lots of flak for this before, and he doesn’t anticipate that stopping anytime soon, and he also doesn’t want to chase off the only person who’s willingly engaging with them right now, so he doesn’t say anything more than that.

“Okay, so how would _I_ get an invitation, then?” Rowen presses.

“Why, you’d talk to the druids, of course,” the person says with a mocking laugh. “Every one of them. And once you get all seven of their seals, you can go in and out as you please. Darling, this is how it’s always been—how could you not know?”

“Thank you,” Rowen says, turning to look at Boyle with wide eyes. He nods back, too busy fighting the urge to speedwalk away to say anything. “Sorry for bothering you. Enjoy your evening.”

“What’s got _you_ all in a rush?” the person says in a way that suggests they think they are very much superior to them, and neither he nor Rowen answer as they turn and begin walking away. They call after them, “You’re welcome!”

“Ugh,” Rowen mutters. Boyle agrees with a grunt and doesn’t dare look back.

* * *

“Took your sweet time, huh?” John says when they finally find the car again. Myst is sitting on top of it, legs kicking and almost hitting Robin, who is sitting in the backseat where the door is open. Te’ijal and Galahad are nowhere to be seen. The party at the Oracle’s mansion is still going strong from the sound of it, and Boyle wordlessly takes shotgun while Rowen slides into the driver’s seat.

“We figured out how to get invited,” Rowen says as she starts the car. Myst slips in over Robin’s lap to sit in the middle; John takes the last seat in the back. “We have to talk to every single druid in the city and get their seal of approval.”

“You’re shitting me,” John says. Boyle says nothing; Rowen just starts driving. “You’re not shitting me,” John says with a sigh. “Gods, Te’ijal sure knows how to give us the toughies, huh?”

“Where is she, speaking of her?” Boyle says.

“Hunting,” Myst says. “Galahad went with her to keep her from doing that, so I imagine they’ll be out there for a while.”

“Grand,” Boyle says. Something occurs to him then and he turns to look at Myst. “Robin’s not staying with us.”

Myst pouts. It’s very effective, and Boyle steels his resolve when she says, “But Boyle, he lives so far away! It’d be faster if he just stayed over for the night.”

“I can just sleep on a couch,” Robin says earnestly, though he doesn’t look particularly thrilled by this turn of events. “Or the floor. I’ve slept in worse places!”

“We’ll see what Ingrid says,” Boyle says. Myst opens her mouth, and he holds up a hand and says, “Ingrid will turn him into a frog the second she sees him, you’re right. You’ll go in and ask her first. And—I can’t believe I’m saying this—I’ll stay with Robin and keep him out of trouble.”

Myst cheers in that eerie way all mist sprites cheer: hollowly, like wind whistling through wood and leaves. Boyle and John are both used to this by now; so is Robin, apparently, because he smiles and laughs a little. Rowen, on the other hand, says, “What the fuck was that?”

“Don’t be crass,” John admonishes immediately. “She’s Myst and we love her.”

“Gods,” Rowen says. “Galahad didn’t say that you were all so weird.”

“Galahad didn’t tell us about you, so fair’s fair,” Boyle shoots back. Rowen shoots him a sharp, small grin and jerks the wheel to the left, and Boyle barely manages to keep his head from smashing against the window. John only has time to grunt before both Myst and Robin’s combined weight tumbles into him—admittedly not much, because Myst weighs nothing—and then Rowen’s straightened out the car like nothing’s happened. “You,” Boyle says to her as he settles back into his seat, “are my least favorite person in the world.”

“Glad to hear it,” Rowen says, giving him the finger. “So where are we stopping first?”

“Get me out of here,” John says, still smushed against the door as Robin straightens himself out. “Just let me out. I’ll walk home.” Myst, as she is wont to do, rattles out John’s address, and John says, “Or not. For the sake of my stomach, don’t do that again.”

Rowen snorts and says, “Didn’t you say you used to fly dragons?”

“Dragons are _not_ the same as cars,” John says crossly. “For one thing, they’re way fucking smarter.”

“Gods, not this again,” Boyle says with a sigh. It’s going to be a long ride home.

* * *

Myst and Robin have already piled out of the car when Rowen puts a hand on Boyle’s arm and says, “Can I say something real quick?”

Boyle, because he’s not a complete asshole, pauses and glances back at her. She doesn’t say anything right away. Like all elves, her eyes are bigger than a human’s, and right now they’re shiny and green and disconcerting in their intensity. This must be, Boyle assumes, how a mouse feels when a trap has pinned it into place, just out of range of a delicious piece of cheese.

“Somehow,” Rowen says, fingers resting on the folds of his sleeve, “you’re the least weird out of the bunch. Thanks for being relatable about eighty percent of the time.”

“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment,” Boyle says. Rowen laughs as he paws the door open and steps out, and it’s only out of a sense of obligation that he leans down to look inside as he asks, “you really have a son and husband out in Delamere?”

“Obviously,” Rowen says. “You think I’d be here if I had to be?”

Boyle shrugs. He knows what family means in the way that Fang places his snout in Boyle’s hand and snuffles, that Myst gaily eggs him and his strange, dark wizardry on, that Ingrid, huff as she might, will strike at any who hurts him. He doesn’t want to lose those who are close to him, as heroic as that sounds, and so he says to her, “I hope you make it back in time for your son’s birthday.”

Rowen’s eyes widen incrementally. It’s a heartbeat of a moment before she says, “Sentimentality? From you? You really _have_ changed, Boyle the Horrible.”

“Get out of here, kid,” he says, slamming the door shut, and her laugh follows him all the way to the door of his complex.

* * *

It’s late by the time Ingrid returns home, which means that Myst has had ample time to get Robin settled in on their couch. Boyle hears the lock click and scurries to his and Ingrid’s shared bedroom before he has to bear the brunt of her ire of having a Crusader in the house, and sure enough, he’s barely darted inside and turned the lights on when there’s the tinkle of Ingrid’s transformation magic and Myst says plaintively, “Ingrid, he’s a guest!”

“Crusaders are not guests,” Ingrid says coldly. “Remember the last fifteen that tried to kill all of us?”

“This one is nice!” Myst says. Boyle can’t help the way his face contorts when she raises her voice and calls, “Tell her so, Boyle!”

“Boyle?” Ingrid says, sounding both incredulous and indignant all at once. Granted, Boyle was supposed to hide Robin while Myst talked to Ingrid, but his self-preservation instincts kicked in, so this is deserved.

“Leave me out of this,” he says, even as he trudges back into the common room. Ingrid is holding a bright blue frog with her nails digging in; the frog, accordingly, is squirming, but otherwise making no move to escape. Myst looks like she’s about to cry, which is a ploy that both he and Ingrid have fallen for many times, and, he supposes, he’s fallen for yet again. “Unfortunately, she’s right. This one is a squire and we need him to help Te’ijal.”

“Te’ijal?” Ingrid says, releasing Robin. He lands onto their table with a wet thud, and Myst scoops him up and cups him protectively against the fur around her neck.

“She ran out of sunblock and needs us to help her get a bottle from the Oracle,” Boyle says, sounding about as tired as he felt. Ingrid raises a perfectly-trimmed eyebrow. “Yeah, _that_ Oracle. She has the entire market locked down, so we don’t have a choice, apparently.”

“Ah. That explains that,” Ingrid says, mostly to herself, and at Boyle’s questioning noise, she explains, “Delilah—from the coven, you met her once—was mentioning how she hadn’t been able to get in touch with her usual enchanter. The Oracle has enough connections to set up a hit whenever she wants, I think.”

“That’s reassuring,” Boyle says dryly. “At any rate, the only way to get an audience with an Oracle is to get the seal of approval from every druid in the city, so that’s going to be my next few weeks. The bigwigs even gave me the time off to do it.”

Ingrid laughs. “That sounds like Rhen.”

“Can you turn him back into a person, please?” Myst says. Robin croaks from between her fingers.

“What’s to keep him from slitting our throats while we sleep?” Ingrid says, eyes narrowing as she turns back to Myst. “No, I think he can stay like that until you all need to head out tomorrow.”

“Ingrid,” Myst whines.

“ _No,_ Myst. I’m not risking having fifteen Crusaders try to kill us again, especially when this one can run back to his friends and tell them where we live.”

“Ingrid, he would never,” Myst says, her lips drawing back slightly. She’s about to snarl. Boyle weighs the pros and cons of intervening. Pros: the common room doesn’t get destroyed. Cons: Ingrid and Myst are more than capable of inflicting bodily harm. Both options are bad, but one is less likely than the other, and he clears his throat.

Ingrid, predictably, ignores him to say, “I trust you, Myst. Generally, I trust your friends. But you can’t bring a Crusader in here and expect me to accept it at face value.”

“Then it sounds like you don’t actually trust me at all,” Myst shoots back, teeth bared now. Boyle clears his throat again.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Ingrid begins.

“Then you’d trust me when I said that he’s a nice Crusader,” Myst snaps. Robin slips out of her grasp a moment later and hops to the floor, and Boyle seizes his chance and swoops in to pick him up before she can, holding him out of her reach. “Hey! Give him back!”

“Yes, let me go use him in a potion,” Ingrid says mockingly. She’d never do it; she just wants to see Myst gasp indignantly, which she does. “In fact, why don’t I—”

“Ingrid, this frog has had plenty of opportunities to kill us today. He hasn’t yet,” he says, crossing his fingers behind his back and hoping he doesn’t regret what he’s doing. “We also do really need him close by so we can hustle over the next few days. Can we come to a compromise?” Ingrid lifts her wand, and he holds out a hand and says, “You can’t fix all of your problems by turning them into frogs, dear.”

“It’s worked pretty well so far,” Ingrid says, though she lowers her wand again, thank the gods.

“Have Myst be with him all the time,” Boyle says. Robin is not squirming in his hand, which might be because Boyle just has him resting on his open palm and not squeezed in a death grip. He knows how it goes; he’s been a frog plenty of times in his life. “She’s a mist sprite and we both know she can take a real Crusader with her bare hands. Like a buddy system, because she doesn’t have to sleep like the rest of us.”

Myst nods fervently along with his words. Ingrid looks unconvinced, but she doesn’t immediately shoot him down, which is promising. “And he’d be sleeping in the common room, then? With Myst?”

“Yeah,” Boyle says. “We can lock our door. And ward it.”

“What about my potion room? He gets in there and not even Myst can stop him from knocking things over and potentially killing us.”

“We can lock and ward it, too. And Myst will keep him out, obviously,” Boyle says, leveling a look at Myst. Somehow, she nods faster in agreement. “He’s harmless, really,” Boyle adds, turning to Ingrid again. “Doesn’t even have his own sword yet. Or armor.”

Robin croaks. Myst is still nodding. Boyle holds his breath. Ingrid, after a long, tense moment, sighs and waves a hand, and Boyle drops Robin before he breaks an arm with the boy’s weight.

“And with that, I’m going to make midnight lunch,” Boyle says, stepping backwards towards the kitchenette. “You two want anything?”

“Not pasta,” Ingrid says with a sigh.

“Eggs!” Myst says happily, helping Robin to his feet and back to the couch.

“Eggs it is,” Boyle says, holding a hand out to Ingrid. She takes it with a shake of her head, but he can see the ghost of a smile on her face as he pulls her along with him.

* * *

The next day, Boyle steps back into the common room to find Myst and Robin snuggled up together on the pullout bed, with Fang fast asleep on their feet—Ean must have let him in sometime during the night. It’s kind of cute, and so Boyle kicks the bed and says, “Get up. Te’ijal texted me and said Rowen will be here in fifteen.”

Myst, because she’s never actually asleep, perks up immediately and shakes Robin into wakefulness. Fang uncurls so quickly he falls off the pullout bed and then barks and demands pets, which Boyle gladly obliges. Ingrid had turned over in the bed when he had asked her if she wanted to come with, and so Boyle makes toast for him and Myst and Robin and leaves a note on the fridge telling her they’ll be back late.

“Now, Fang,” Boyle says, crouching down in front of Fang. Fang barks. “You can’t come with me today. Not because I don’t love you,” he adds hastily when Fang barks again and starts gnawing on his sleeve, “but because I know you hate cars and we’re going to be in a car for an hour.”

Fang barks again. Myst says, “I don’t think you’ll like running alongside us. Someone might call the pound again.”

“Gods, I forgot about that,” Boyle says with a shudder. Fang whuffs at him. “Yes, yes,” Boyle says, “I’ll be back tonight and Ingrid will be home. I’m sorry. We’ll go out soon, okay?”

Fang barks. Boyle rolls his eyes but obliges his request for treats, and then it’s a hustle down to street level just in time to see Rowen pull up and put the car into park at the door.

“Morning,” she says as Boyle clambers into the passenger seat. She passes him a cup a moment later. “Coffee?”

“What do you want?” Boyle asks immediately, taking the coffee anyway. A lot of sugar and a lot of cream, just how he likes it. John’s doing, he’s sure.

“What do I—nothing? I just figured you’d all want some coffee. Here,” she says, passing two cups to Myst and Robin. “Sorry, kid, didn’t know what you preferred, but I have some extra packs of sugar if you want.”

“I’d like the sugar, please,” Robin says, taking the three packets Rowen hands him. “Thank you very much, miss Rowen!”

“This isn’t vying for a favor or anything?” Boyle asks, squinting at her. Rowen ignores him and instead switches gears and pulls away from the curb. “You’re just doing this for kicks?”

“I’m doing it because I thought you’d want some coffee, Boyle,” she says. “I wanted some myself, so I just got a few extra cups. It’s really not that big of a deal.”

“I don’t believe you,” Boyle declares.

“Not everyone is a rat bastard out to get you,” she says.

There’s a pause, filled only with Myst and Robin laughing at something on Robin’s phone. “Fair,” Boyle concedes grudgingly, and he drinks his coffee to avoid making eye contact when Rowen laughs and switches lanes.

He knows these streets well enough to tell they’re heading towards the Southern Isle district. That’s John’s old stomping grounds, so Boyle imagines John won’t be joining them on this particular escapade. It’s also light out, so Te’ijal and Galahad won’t be there, which means it’ll be just the four of them. Grand, Boyle thinks; he can’t enter a druid’s temple because of his reputation, so he’ll just be there for moral support. Maybe he should’ve just stayed home.

“Te’ijal says that she doesn’t actually know where the druids’ temples are located,” Rowen says. “So we’ll be looking for those first.”

Boyle groans. Looks like he’s not here for moral support after all. “Fantastic.”

“She said you’d be good at that.”

“I’m sure she did,” Boyle grumbles. “She tell you where Elini lives?”

“Who?”

“Elinidana’ter’Lithir de Aramati,” Boyle says. This clearly does nothing to clarify, going by Rowen’s expression, and he shakes his head and pulls out his phone. “She keeps her finger on the pulse of the Southern Isle for Rhen. Best that we start by paying her a visit.”

“Okay,” Rowen says. “Do you know where she lives?”

Myst probably does, but she and Robin are talking, and despite everything Boyle doesn’t have the heart to interrupt. Myst is so very often cheerful and talkative, but it’s rare to see her so happily engaged in conversation with someone like this. “I’ll figure it out,” he says, pressing John’s name in his contacts and putting the phone to his ear. “Drive towards the eastern outskirts of the Isle in the meantime. She’s around there somewhere.”

“Got it,” Rowen says.

“ _Hey, Boyle_ ,” John says after a few rings. He sounds slightly winded. “ _Don’t have much time. What’s up?_ ”

“You got Elini’s address?” Boyle asks, not bothering to ask what he’s doing. It’s likely nothing good. “We need to ask her if she knows where the temples are.”

“ _Thank the gods I’m not with you_ ,” John says predictably. “ _I’ll text it over. Could you tell her to stop sending me love potion-laced cookies every month?_ ”

“Sure,” Boyle says. He’s not going to do that. “Good luck with whatever it is you’re doing.”

“ _Cheers._ ”

“Any idea what he’s doing?” Rowen asks as Boyle hangs up.

“Nope,” Boyle says. He gets a notification about a text from John and plugs the given address into his maps app a moment later. “Well, maybe breaking and entering. That’s kind of his thing.”

“Is that what you’re good at, too?”

“You can see what I’m wearing, right?”

“Yes, and that it’s gaudy as hell. Point taken,” Rowen says. Boyle’s phone drones out to turn left in half a mile, and Rowen switches lanes accordingly. “So what are you good at, then?”

“You’ll see,” Boyle says, not because he wants to be enigmatic but because he doesn’t feel like explaining.

“Ominous,” Rowen says, and they drive on.

* * *

Elini is home, thankfully, and greets them all by saying, “Let me guess: John says he wants me to stop sending him cookies?”

“Yeah,” Boyle says.

Elini smiles prettily, showing off too many teeth to be friendly. “Tell him to take a bite of one. Just one.”

“Okay,” Boyle says. He’s not going to do that, either. “Do you know where we can find the druids of this Isle?”

Elini does, as it turns out—or more precisely, she knows the general locations, which is a hell of a lot better than shooting in the dark. Shouldn’t take more than an hour or two to narrow down the exact building, Boyle figures, and after tea and biscuits, they’re off again. When they get to the first of the two neighborhoods, Rowen parks, they all hop out, and Boyle tells Myst, “Find a place to sit and start rehearsing what you’re going to say.”

“Aye aye,” Myst says, arm looped through Robin’s. “How long do you think you’ll need?”

“Hour, tops. I’ll text you when I’m done,” Boyle says, nodding back when she does. She and Robin start walking away when he turns to Rowen. “I’d tell you to stay here, but I have a feeling you’re going to follow me no matter what I say, so come on.”

“Aw, you _do_ care,” Rowen teases. He ignores her as she falls into step next to him. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” Boyle says, making a beeline for the nearest bar. He’d been looking on his phone the moment Elini had told him the general location, and he’d spent the car ride mentally prepping his questions. “Just watch my back for me.”

“Only if you watch mine,” Rowen says, unperturbed, and she follows him in when he pushes open the door for a pub.

Like most times he’s had to do this, it doesn’t take him long—most people are willing to cough up a surprising amount of information when he threatens them with his spells. Of course, it also makes them call the cops, but that’s a minor inconvenience at best: Rhen generally keeps an eye on the proceedings and can pop him out of jail before anyone even knows he’s there. As it stands, the bartender points him in presumably the right direction within a matter of minutes, and then they’re off again.

“Not to where she said?” Rowen asks as Boyle holds the door open for another bar.

“She was probably lying,” Boyle says with a shrug. Rowen brushes past him to go inside, and he follows her as he says, “Better safe than sorry.”

The next bartender tells them a different location, as do a few other patrons. There are sirens in the distance as they hop to the next bar, and they watch the flashing lights go past before emerging again to try the next. By the time an hour has passed, Boyle has narrowed down every suggested location into three most probable points, and he has Myst and Robin meet them at the first. He’s right, at it turns out: it’s a small, narrow door, but above it in curly script reads _DRUID OF MUSIC_ , under which is an engraving of a violin.

Myst whistles. “Nice work, Boyle!”

“Thank you,” Boyle says graciously. Less graciously, he adds, “Rowen was of no help.”

“I was moral support and also the transportation,” Rowen corrects. Boyle ignores her; Robin laughs. “Shall we go in?”

“You can,” Boyle says. “I’m going to go find a nice little coffeeshop and get myself a croissant and a cake pop.”

“I’m doing that,” Rowen says immediately.

“Aww,” Myst says, clearly torn. “Will you get me a cake pop, too?”

“Only if you get the seal,” Boyle says imperiously. Myst sniffles and pouts at him, and his resolve crumbles immediately. “Okay, yes. A vanilla cake pop, just for you.”

“Wow,” Rowen says when Myst perks up and lets out a little mist sprite cheer. She and Robin enter the temple a moment later, and Rowen tells him, “You’re made of papier mâché.”

“Hush,” Boyle says, starting to walk. “Cake pops are in the future. Nothing you say can hurt me.”

“You hide your insecurities behind a wall of made-up charismatic—”

“Hey,” Boyle says, shooting her a glare, but Rowen only grins and jogs to catch up.

* * *

The cops almost catch him on the way there, but once he’s got his croissant and cake pops, he texts Rhen and she texts him back _taken care of_ within the minute. It’s nice being her friend, he reflects. It’s also a welcome distraction from Rowen scarfing down five cake pops like she’s starving, even if it’s morbidly fascinating to watch.

“It’s like vultures picking meat off the bones of roadkill,” he tells her when she’s gnawing on her third cake pop. “Revolting, but satisfying efficient.” She says something that sounds suspiciously like _shut the fuck up_ , and he laughs and takes a bite of his croissant. It’s not the best, but it’ll do.

Another ten minutes go by before the bell at the door jingles merrily, and Myst and Robin duck inside and make a beeline for his table shortly after. Robin’s grinning from ear to ear, and Boyle and Rowen both lean forward when he presents them with a slip of paper. It’s blank, and all it has is a wax stamp that has the same violin on the door melted into it.

Myst plucks the only vanilla cake pop from his plate and says, “Pretty good, right?”

“Great work,” he tells her, and to Robin, he says, “good that you’re making yourself useful.”

“Um. Thank you, sir,” Robin says, tucking the paper into a pocket inside his vest. “So what’s next?”

“We do it all over again,” Boyle says, shrugging. He picks up his croissant. “After I’m done eating, anyway.”

“I’ll get the car,” Rowen says through a chewed-up mess of cake pops, getting to her feet. Even though Boyle can make out the words, it sounds vaguely like she’s put a pillow directly onto her face and is trying to talk through it. Not that it matters; she’s out the door before he can comment, and Myst slips into the chair to take her spot.

“Sir, can I ask you something?” Robin says after a bout of silence.

“Sure,” Boyle says, taking another bite of his croissant.

“What made you want to become a villain?”

Boyle raises an eyebrow and looks at Myst. Myst waggles her eyebrows back, which means absolutely nothing to him, and he looks to Robin again. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, well,” Robin says, suddenly shy, “they just tell us in the Crusaders that you’re all monsters to be smited by the light and stuff. But you seem pretty okay to me.”

“We do kill people sometimes,” Boyle says without batting an eye. Robin gasps, predictably. “And we also do a lot of cruel things on occasion. And we cheat. And we steal. And you met Ingrid—she’s not the friendliest person around.” He shrugs. “Not to say your Crusaders are wrong or anything, but that seems like a pretty reasonable thing to teach a peace corp.”

“I guess,” Robin says, sounding unconvinced. “So why did you decide to do it?”

Boyle shrugs again. “Felt like it?”

“Oh,” Robin says.

“That, and I didn’t exactly have options,” Boyle says. “You start showing affinity for magic that people are afraid of and you get shoehorned into a role. I liked it, so I played along, and now here I am. Not bad, eh?”

“You _were_ stopped before you took over the world,” Robin points out, to which Boyle rolls his eyes, “but I see what you mean. I didn’t have a lot of options, either. The Crusaders were the only ones to take my application and agree to train me.”

“And how’s that going?” Boyle asks, genuinely curious. There’s a reason somewhere why Myst likes him, beyond the fact that he’s apparently a good enough person to get a druid’s seal of approval within half an hour.

“Not super great?” Robin says, phrasing it like a question. “They have me getting coffee and carrying stuff, usually.”

“Ah, unpaid interns. I had a few back in my day,” Boyle says wisely. Myst must feel bad for him. And also like him because he’s actually a good person who hasn’t hurt anyone. “Well, maybe you’ll get somewhere someday, kid. I recommend finding a witch and cursing your boss.”

“Um, I have more than one boss?” Robin says, which is when Rowen honks the horn of the car outside and they all get up to leave.

* * *

The next seal is easier to get, as it turns out: the druid of strength resides in a shitty twenty-four-hour gym. All of the patrons are chiseled and big and tall, which means Boyle stays in the car with Rowen and they watch Myst and Robin through the huge, wall-length windows as they talk to the druid.

“So you live together?” Rowen says after a weirdly companionable silence.

“Yup,” Boyle says. “Robin’s a temporary resident while we get all of this figured out, but Myst has lived with me and my housemate Ingrid for almost a year now.”

“Your housemate?”

“She cursed me to marry her and then we both decided it was better if we just kind of went with the flow,” Boyle says. The answer is not one Rowen expected, going by the expression on her face. “Turns out you can get married and then divorced on the same day, so we just went with that. Small-time curses are no big deal. We share a bed sometimes, though, sometimes.”

“Huh,” Rowen says. “And how did Myst get in there?”

“Oh, you know. You’re minding your own business one day and poof, she’s up in your business the next.”

Rowen considers this for a moment before she says, “You let anyone who shows up in your apartment live with you?”

“What? No!” Boyle says, and then he warns her, “don’t get any ideas, Rowen.”

“Me? Ideas? Perish the thought.”

“Stop that,” he says, brandishing his index finger at her. She laughs and bats him away. “Seriously, don’t even think about it. We barely have enough room for Robin, and we don’t have room for you.”

“I wasn’t thinking about it at all, Boyle, trust me,” Rowen says. Boyle can’t tell if she’s lying, but either way, she changes the subject by saying, “Oh, look, here come the whippersnappers now.”

Said whippersnappers aren’t actually coming just yet, because Robin is flexing while the druid is stamping a paper with their seal, but Boyle lets it go and says, “Can you believe we have to do this all over again tomorrow?”

“Honestly, I’m just glad we got through two in one day,” Rowen says. “We’ll even have time to stop and get dinner somewhere nice.”

“I thought you didn’t have money,” Boyle says as Myst and Robin leave the druid’s office.

“Well, _I_ don’t. But I’m the driver, so you can treat me to some food, can’t you?”

“Were the cake pops not enough to sate your endless hunger?” Boyle asks despairingly. “You ate five of them!”

“And I’ll eat five more,” Rowen promises solemnly, fighting to hide a smile, which is when Myst and Robin open the door and pile in, talking all at once about their success. Better than somehow being negotiated into buying Rowen a meal, so he turns to listen to Myst as Rowen starts reversing the car and driving out of the parking lot.

* * *

They end up getting drive-through food from a fast-food joint not too far from Elini’s apartment. Tragically, Boyle forks over the gold for it, and he sulks for the rest of the ride home.

(Rowen has the decency to eat in silence as she drives while Myst and Robin chatter in the back, at least.)

* * *

Fang is waiting for them when they get back, lifting his head to woof at them from where he’s lounging on the couch and watching television as Boyle opens the door. Going by the clinking and muttering, Ingrid is in the middle of making a potion. It seems that it’s up to him to make a late dinner/midnight lunch again, but first he says to Fang, “Anything good on right now?”

Fang’s bark affirms that no, there isn’t. One of these days, Boyle will figure out how he can so deftly use the remote for the television, but today is not that day.

“Pity,” Boyle says as he bustles towards the kitchen. “Let me know if anything interesting comes up on the news.”

Fang barks again to confirm. Myst and Robin are cooing over and petting him, though, so Boyle doesn’t keep his hopes up as he checks his phone. Te’ijal’s texted him: _Going to Western Isle tonight. Druid of darkness is a vampire too. Be ready at 22:00._

Boyle sighs—so much for midnight lunch. He flicks back to check his texts from John. _Lars told me to be careful at EI. O’s caught wind of what we’re doing and she’s not happy about it._ He scrolls down to see another text that was sent just a few minutes ago. _Apparently when the criminal underground tries to legally buy your products, morally-gray but legally correct entities get pissed. Who knew?_

“Don’t get settled in,” Boyle says, turning to look over his shoulder. Myst and Robin, curled up on either side of Fang, look up at him. Fang whines. “Te’ijal says we gotta get moving in a few hours. The druid of darkness is only active at night.”

“Oh, dear,” Robin says. Fang’s tail starts wagging violently and thwapping Robin’s leg, but Robin doesn’t seem to notice in the least. “Will it be dangerous?”

“Probably,” Boyle says. He doubts it, but better to keep a Crusader on their toes, he supposes.

“I don’t think so,” Myst says, crushing his dreams. “There’s a lot of us, and we’re pretty tough.”

“Okay,” Robin says, looking more at ease. “Then I’m ready whenever.”

“And we’re bringing Fang,” Boyle says, to which Fang barks and Myst quickly shushes him before the neighbors get mad. He texts this to Te’ijal, then adds _it’ll make it easier to find the druid_ before she can respond. “Okay, then,” he says, plopping down next to Myst and conveniently as far away as possible from Robin. “You’re in control of the remote, Fang. You pick.”

Fang changes the channel to a competitive bakeoff, and they all settle back in to watch. As long as Robin doesn’t say anything, this whole situation isn’t so bad, Boyle thinks, and a small, traitorous part of him wonders what Rowen is doing right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY [mx. ishti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishti/works) made art for this fic [HAVE A LOOK](https://www.deviantart.com/jokerfae/art/sundown-showdown-slowdown-846187858)


	2. curtains up, the sun shines in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Western Isle is normally kind to its nightly denizens - at least until Windshire Elite recently rose to power.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! it's been 5 months. i'm so sorry.

At precisely 21:55, Rowen texts Boyle, _We’re here._

“Te’ijal’s here,” Boyle says to the rest. “Let’s go.”

“Good luck,” Ingrid says. She’d joined them half an hour ago, spending the majority of the time critiquing the bakers’ techniques. _They know nothing about chemistry_ is the gist of her complaints. “Tell them I said hi.”

“Will do,” Boyle says, texting Rowen, _how did you get this number._

Fang happily leaps off of the couch, using Robin’s lap for leverage, and Boyle takes a small bit of vicious satisfaction at the grunt Robin lets out. Myst, meanwhile, says, “Fang! Watch where you’re putting your paws!”

“You leave my boy alone,” Boyle warns Myst, even as Fang whuffs in apology. He’s too soft on her, but then again, they all are, and Boyle lets it go as his phone buzzes again. Te’ijal is getting impatient. “Let’s go, Fang.”

He checks his phone as they all toddle down the stairs, Fang dashing ahead of them with boundless energy. It wasn’t Te’ijal who had messaged him, but instead Rowen again. _John gave it to me._

 _Why_ , Boyle texts back with one hand, and then they’ve made it to street level, Boyle opens the trunk for Fang, closes it, and slips into shotgun while Myst and Robin pile into the back, and he asks, “John, why did you give Rowen my number?”

“Should I not have?” John says, which is about the answer Boyle should have expected. He pops the backseat up once Myst and Robin have settled in and takes his seat, and even in the limited light, Boyle can see the shadow under his eye. He doesn’t look terribly happy about being pressed up against Te’ijal’s shoulder, either. “Sorry. She asked and I just gave it to her without thinking about it.”

“Why did you need it?” Boyle says, turning to Rowen.

“Why are you so suspicious about it?” Rowen asks coolly. Boyle opens his mouth to speak, and she cuts him off before he can. “It’s easier this way. Now I can just bother you directly so I don’t have to wait as long.”

“I _knew_ there was a motive,” Boyle says wisely. Rowen rolls her eyes as she pulls away from the curb, and he turns to face the backseats. Myst and Robin are engrossed in each other, of course, but Te’ijal, Galahad, and John all look at him when he does. “Ingrid says hello.”

“Hi, Ingrid,” John says dutifully, reaching up to rub his forehead.

“How is she?” Te’ijal asks, leaning forward a little. Galahad eyes her, expression unchanging, which is both nothing new and a little odd. Something must have happened, Boyle decides, and he decides just as quickly that he doesn’t want to know. “The last time I spoke to her, she told me someone in her coven tripped over their cauldron and—”

“—and burned through the floorboards of their house, yeah,” Boyle says. It’s an easy conversation, but there’s tension in the undercurrent, and he doesn’t know what to make of it, so he ignores it. “Ingrid told me she’s not getting involved, and it’s not like she can just join a different coven. You know how it goes.”

“Indeed,” Te’ijal agrees, because she’s a vampire who’s fuck-all old. Galahad nods rigidly besides her, and John closes his eye and presses his hand over it. “Did that get resolved? Sounds like it was pretty dramatic if she’s staying out of it.”

“She’s lying, of course. She loves drama,” Boyle says. Myst makes a noise of agreement, and Te’ijal laughs.

The conversation carries on from there, but John continues to look uncomfortable and Galahad continues to watch Te’ijal with a strange intensity. Something definitely happened today and none of them look like they’re going to talk about it, for which Boyle is very glad; he’s happy to talk about his family and stay in his lane, but he’s still relieved when Rowen announces, “We’re here,” as she flawlessly parallel parks the car between a spot that frankly seems too small.

John looks somehow more uneasy when they all pile out of the car, and he only notices Boyle’s look when Rowen locks the car and they all start walking. “I hate being in the dark,” he confesses. Boyle can’t help but admire how easily John admits it. “But also, if Lars says something’s up, I always get nervous.”

“Lars is sometimes wrong,” Boyle says. John raises his eyebrow at him, and Boyle sighs. “Yes, I know, he’s usually right about this kind of thing. But with this many of us, we should be fine.”

“We said that about Ahriman, and then Myst and I got captured for three weeks,” John points out, and Boyle winces. He hasn’t forgotten the haunted look in John’s eye and the gauntness of his face after Rhen had staged her rescue. “Even if the Oracle doesn’t stoop that low, I don’t want to take any chances.”

“That sounds perfectly valid to me,” Boyle says, at the same time that Te’ijal, leading at the front of their little party, stops and says, “What the hell?”

* * *

The nightlife in the Ghed’hare district is widely regarded as the most thrilling and dangerous, probably because most of its population doesn’t sleep and has a lot of time to party it up. At this time of night, it should be bustling with activity as vampires wake up and start their nights; right now, though, as Boyle bunches up together with the rest of his crew, the streets are hauntingly empty. There only passerby they see are ghosts flitting from shadow to shadow, and even then, all of them hurry past without making eye contact.

Te’ijal, meanwhile, has her nose in the air, and she and Galahad say, “Blood,” at the same time before lunging forward in a soundless straight sprint. They’ve turned a corner and disappeared before any of them can otherwise move.

Boyle sighs. Galahad’s armor is perfectly silent; he’s half-convinced that it’s an illusion. “Fang, you have their scent?” Fang whuffs. “You’re the best. Can you lead us to them?”

“I don’t like this,” John says, unsheathing his rapier with a whisper of mythril, and the four of them advance after Fang into the district proper.

The only lights illuminating the way are the streetlamps burning low, and while normally Boyle would find such lighting comforting, now it only serves to raise the hairs on the back of his neck. Myst’s eyes are too wide and her teeth just a little too sharp as she surveys the streets; Robin looks terrified and sticks close to her. Boyle breathes in and feels his magic stir in his blood, and he vaguely wishes Ingrid had come along. He always feels better going into combat situations when she’s watching his back.

“All I have is a wrench,” Rowen says into the silence. She looks nonplussed, for the most part, but Boyle can see how she’s eyeing their surroundings. “Do you think that’s enough weaponry?”

“We’ll be fine,” Boyle says, to which she nods. Simple as that, he thinks; he tells her something, she believes him. It’s very strange. “John,” Boyle says quietly as they walk, Fang’s nose low to the ground, “did something happen today between you and Galahad and Te’ijal?”

He only asks because he wants to make sure it’s irrelevant. As it stands, though, John’s eye darts over to look at him, and then he looks forward again and says, “There’s been whispers on the streets that the Oracle’s been funding Windshire Elite.”

“What?” Boyle says, fighting to keep his voice level and soft.

“ _Windshire Elite_?” Rowen echoes. “That extremist group?”

“Yeah,” John says, glancing back at Myst and Robin. Myst stares back, nodding; she’s listening, and John drops his voice to a whisper. “They’ve been on an anti-vampiric campaign for the past few days. We just learned a couple of hours ago that Te’ijal’s brother is involved with their activities somehow.”

“Gyendal?” Boyle whispers back. John nods.

“Who’s that?”

“Te’ijal’s brother,” Boyle tells Rowen, ignoring how she says _I heard that the first time_ before he says to John, “He’s been behaving himself ever since the Darkthrop incident. And now he wants his fellows dead?”

“Either that, or the Oracle’s trying to get him to keep Te’ijal from getting sunblock,” John says. Boyle makes a face, and John whispers, “I’ve a feeling that this goes deeper than just the monopoly on sun protection. We’re getting into something we might need help with.”

“I really thought this was going to be a vacation of sorts,” Boyle mutters forlornly. He misses Ingrid and her penchant for turning her problems into frogs, which is when Fang looks back and huffs at them and they all fall silent as they peer around the corner.

Galahad is knelt down on the wet dirt of the stone alleyway, looking over what appears to be a dead body. Unconscious, Boyle corrects; the body’s chest is moving up and down. Te’ijal, meanwhile, is examining the brick wall of the neighboring building, hands propped on her hips. Written in sloppy painted script are the words _EVIL WILL NOT LAST HERE._

“Disgusting,” John says, grimacing and sheathing his rapier. Robin makes a choked sound, and Boyle wrinkles his nose and doesn’t look back when he hears Robin retch. “Galahad, who’s that?”

“A vampire,” Galahad says, not looking up from his examination. “Drained of all blood. It seems another vampire attacked them right after they’d fed and left them here to write that message. They are lucky to be alive.”

“John told me about the Windshire Elite thing,” Boyle says to Te’ijal. “Is this related, do you think?”

“It could be,” Te’ijal says, one fang absentmindedly chewing into her lower lip. She doesn’t seem to mind that John had spilled the beans, at least, but Boyle’s betting that’s more because she’s distracted than the deep well of forgiveness in her heart.

“It must be,” John says, reaching down and snagging something off of the ground, underneath the vampire’s hair. Galahad makes an annoyed noise at him but doesn’t stop him, which is when John shows off what he’d found: a pin that reads _WINDSHIRE ELITE_ along its center. “I’d bet money that this was left intentionally.”

“As opposed to what, your honor?”

“Har har, Myst. I don’t have any of that.”

“For us to find, or for anyone unlucky enough to stumble upon it?” Boyle asks, bringing the conversation back to the topic at hand. Fang whines, pressing up against Boyle’s leg, and Boyle frowns, crouches down to ruffle his ears, and says, “You’re right, everyone was already hiding when we arrived. It must’ve been for you, Te’ijal.”

“I’ll get the car,” Rowen says.

“Not alone,” Myst says, stopping her with a hand on her shoulder. “Boyle, you go with her.”

“What? Why me?”

“Way to let a girl know you hate her, Boyle,” Rowen says, and while she’s aiming for teasing, it falls flat in the face of the nearly-dead vampire before them.

As it stands, Myst is nonplussed. “Robin’s got a target on his back in a place like this, and Te’ijal and Galahad need to lead us to the druid.”

“Fine, fine,” Boyle says. Myst’s points are sound, even if he doesn’t like them too much. Still, unlike John, Boyle doesn’t need anything but his spells to be dangerous; being captured is far less likely in that regard. “Fang, let’s go.”

Fang whines again. Myst’s eyes widen and she says, “That changes things, boy. If you can smell who did it, then we should follow the trail.”

“Maybe, but we need the druid, first,” Te’ijal says. “We can’t leave yet. We should stick together.”

“Your brother—”

“—isn’t here,” Te’ijal says, shooting Galahad a dirty look. Galahad is, as ever, expressionless. She sighs, reaching up to drag her fingers down her cheeks. “I know where the temple is, at least. Used to walk by it when I lived here, assuming it hasn’t moved.”

“You lived in Ghed’hare?” Boyle asks. Te’ijal gives him a look, and he shrugs. “Didn’t think you were the type. Shall we get going?”

Robin, forgotten until now, says, “Does anyone have any water?”

“Here,” Rowen says, unclipping a flask from her hip and handing it to him.

Robin takes a sip and then chokes out _that isn’t water_ as Galahad says, “We’ll have to move quickly. No doubt the Oracle knows we’re here, and there’s no predicting what she will do next.”

“Okay, so let’s split up,” Myst says. “You know where the temple is, so we should go there. Boyle, Rowen, and John can find who did this, and then they can get the car.”

“Must we?” John says, pained. Boyle is inclined to agree.

“You’d rather they do whatever they want?” Galahad says peaceably. “Rhen and Lars are Windshire Elite’s most wanted. I think I speak for all of us when I say that them getting their hands on our leaders is an objectively bad thing.”

It’s a good point. Boyle respects Rhen and Lars and the work they do, and it’d be a shame if he had to look for work elsewhere. John must realize this too, because he mutters, “Fine,” and glances over to Boyle.

“Relax, pirate, we’ll be peachy,” Rowen says, slapping him on the back. John grunts and says nothing.

“Fang will lead the way,” Boyle says instead of anything else, ceasing in his petting to look Fang in the eye. Fang pants back at him, and Boyle nods firmly. “Yes, he will, there’s a good boy. Keep that mythril ready, John.”

“Yeah, yeah,” John says, unsheathing his rapier again. Boyle briefly thinks back to his staff leaning against the wall at his apartment, but like most of his things, it’s cosmetic. He’ll be fine without it. “Text us when you’ve got the seal or in an hour, whichever’s sooner.”

“Yes,” Galahad says with a nod.

“Again, I only have a wrench,” Rowen says as Fang peels off from the group and starts sniffing the sidewalk outside the alley. “But this is fine, I guess.”

“Less talking, more walking,” Boyle says, scampering after his dog, and Myst calls a farewell as the three of them move.

* * *

“So do you actually know how to use that?” Rowen asks John. Fang’s leading them down the main road for now, though they’ve made several twists and turns onto side streets and alleys. It seems they’re going out of Ghed’hare, though; they’ve been walking for ten minutes already.

“What, this?” John says, making a little gesture with his rapier. It’s obvious just from looking at him swing it around that yes, he does know how to use it. “Obviously. Why else would I have it?”

“I dunno,” Rowen says. “I just kind of assumed we’re out the antiquated ages and that Galahad’s sword is for show.”

“Galahad’s sword is definitely not just for show,” Boyle says darkly. John nods fervently.

“Oh,” Rowen says. “Really?”

“ _Yes_ ,” John says.

“Huh,” Rowen says. “You know, I thought you were all intense LARPers for a while.”

“This coming from the woman who willingly enslaved herself in the name of adventure,” John says dryly.

“ _Hey_.”

“What, you think this eyepatch is fake? Gods, Rowen.”

“How was I supposed to know, mister my-first-name-may-or-may-not-be-pirate-and-I-wanted-to-be-ironic?”

“Do you know anything about this city at all or—”

Fang looks back and lets out a soft noise. Boyle whistles a low note and John immediately falls silent, scanning their surroundings. Rowen, unfamiliar with their signals as she may be, nevertheless follows suit, and they creep up behind his dog as Fang creeps forward, low to the ground. They’ve stopped at a fairly nondescript apartment building. It looks vaguely familiar.

“… This is where Gyendal lives,” John says, which, yes, that tracks.

“Oh, bother,” Boyle says, rolling his eyes. Fang makes a low noise in the back of his throat in agreement. “ _You_ can text the news to Te’ijal. Let’s backtrack and get the car.”

“Gotta wonder what the Oracle paid him with to make him do something like that,” John says as they all turn to start walking back the way they came. Fang trots ahead, ever in the lead. That’s one good thing about abandoned streets, Boyle supposes; nobody gives Fang a second glance, because there’s no one there to do so. “Money? Blood bags? Destroying the sun?”

“Getting his magic back?” Boyle offers quietly, thinking back to when he was first learning how to cast his own spells, the sheer awe and happiness he’d felt.

John lets out a soft _oh_. Rowen says, “Wait, what?”

“As punishment for trying to kill Mel, her friend Ulf put some bracelets on him that prevent him from using magic. They’re supposedly impossible to take off. You’d have to ask Te’ijal for all the details,” Boyle says, thinking back from when the fiasco took place. It was before John’s time, which is why he’s listening attentively now. “Ulf’s been traveling outside of the city for the last few years, as far as I remember, so getting him to take them off is out. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Oracle could break the cuffs, though.”

“Seems kind of dumb,” Rowen says, “trying to free someone whose magic was sealed away on purpose. Who’s Mel, by the way?”

“Gods, we have a lot to catch you up on,” John says with a short, humorless laugh, and they push on.

* * *

They end up driving over to pick up the rest of their crew the second they get back into the car. Apparently the druid had been happy to do anything to get Te’ijal and Galahad the hell out of his temple, and so it’s barely a minute since Rowen started driving before Myst and Robin and the vampires are piling back in while Te’ijal yells, “Can’t he keep his idiot head out of trouble for _one century_?”

“Rhen did tell you that you were in charge of keeping him out of trouble,” Boyle says mildly. This is a true statement, but, going by the glare Te’ijal shoots him, she’s not enthused with the reminder. He’s too grumpy about Fang being stuck outside of the car and having to run alongside them to care.

“There’s no way you could have predicted something like this,” Galahad says soothingly, and Te’ijal looks mollified right up until he adds, “though you probably could have afforded to check in more.”

Te’ijal lets out a wordless scream. John, sitting next to her, looks torn between slapping his hand over her mouth and plugging his ears, and from the very back, Robin says, “Where is he? Can we talk to him?”

“Can we talk about the fact that Te’ijal’s task to get sunblock has become some kind of weird conspiracy where an extremist good-leaning group has decided to exterminate an entire race of humanoids?” Rowen says. Boyle turns to look at her; the rest of the passengers fall silent, and she looks at them through the rearview mirror and says, “I’m just saying, it’s kind of wack.”

“That seems kind of bad,” Robin pipes up from next to Myst. “Because genocide is bad. Maybe they should change their name to Windshire Elite Killers.”

“For once, we’re in agreement,” Te’ijal says.

“Imagine if you could pin this on the Oracle,” Boyle muses. “A scandal like that would take her down for good.”

“We could, probably.”

Everyone turns to John. He looks contemplative, but he looks up when he feels everyone’s stares.

“I’m just saying,” he says, a little defensively. “I mean, she hasn’t been a problem before, but now she kind of is. We’d be doing the underground a favor, really.”

“You mean we’d be doing us a favor,” Te’ijal says. “Because we _are_ the underground.”

“Sure, whatever,” John says, already waving a hand away. He really doesn’t want Te’ijal’s attention, it seems, and he turns to look out the window at the passing buildings. “Forget I said anything.”

There’s an awkward silence for all of five seconds before Galahad clears his throat and says, “Let’s worry about this tomorrow. It’s been a long day and there are still four more seals we need before we can do anything else.”

“Agreed,” Te’ijal says. “It’s lucky that nothing worse happened while we were—”

Rowen swears loudly and hits the brakes, and Boyle feels something in his shoulder crack as he’s thrown up against the dash of the car. He doesn’t know how the rest are faring as he turns towards the front, and his stomach knots when he sees the caravan of cheery, pink vans fan out in front of them to block their escape. _Windshire Elite!_ is emblazoned in curling yellow script across the sides, and as their car idles in the thoroughfare, people wearing matching uniforms pour out of their back doors.

“We need to call Rhen,” Boyle says, realizing in an instant that everyone has turned to him for guidance. He’s not the oldest person here, but he’s been running with her crew the longest; this isn’t his first tangle with Windshire Elite. “Rowen, can you turn around?”

“They’re behind us too,” Rowen says with a grimace.

Boyle looks behind him to find she is unfortunately correct. Robin can’t be indicted for a crime right now, so fighting is right out; he has to stay hidden, as does Rowen. Myst is practically uncatchable, and John was recruited because he was, both literally and metaphorically, the fastest runner in the entire city. Te’ijal and Galahad are seasoned fighters, but considering the numbers of Windshire Elite goons surrounding them, the odds are not in their favor.

Of course, Boyle has been in worse situations. It’s a shame Ingrid isn’t here.

“John, call Rhen,” Boyle says, assessing the situation one more time and then nodding to himself; this will work, and he unbuckles his seatbelt. “Rowen, floor it the second you see an opening, and Myst, give me an assist when you see the opportunity. Everyone else, hang on tight.”

Myst whoops from the back of the seat as Boyle rolls down his window and John puts his phone to his ear. Rowen says, “What the fuck are you doing?”

“My job,” Boyle says, feeling his magic stir within his veins as he whistles for Fang: _wait for my signal, then run_. Fang barks in acknowledgement, and not a single Windshire Elite grunt turns to look. Their mistake. “Remember, floor it.”

“Yeah, I heard you,” Rowen says at the same time that Boyle spins the Gauss shield around the car—a trick he’d learned from Lars—and then leans his head and hands out the window, weaving a dark orb of magic between his fingers and launching it directly at the grunts in front of them.

The explosion is exactly what he’d hoped for: loud, blinding, and big, but mostly cosmetic. It sends the Windshire Elite grunts in front of them either flying or scattering, and Rowen, true to her word, hits the gas as soon as the dust clears a little. Boyle slips back into the car fully before he gets thrown out of it, and when he whistles for Fang, there’s an answering bark and a blur of motion beside them; Myst, meanwhile, is leaning towards the front with a hand extending towards John’s window, sending a steady stream of thick, foggy mist into the air to mask their escape. Robin is screaming quietly into his hands.

“—looks like we have it under control,” John is saying. “Gods. Two weeks off and now the Oracle’s crawling up our noses.”

“Tell her we’re going to the penthouse,” Boyle says, swiping his hands against his robes a few times. Magic leaves no residue, but the tingle subsides when he does this. “Warn her about Rowen and Robin.”

John relays this and confirms their arrival time before hanging up, and once he does, Rowen says, “Who the hell is Rhen?”

“Our leader,” Galahad says, at the same time that Te’ijal says, “The scariest person you will ever meet.”

* * *

Rhen is in full work getup with the sword and pistol and everything when they stumble into her and Lars’s apartment—“Caught me right as I was leaving for a heist,” she says with a grimace—and she wastes no time sitting them down and prying the story out of them. Mostly out of Te’ijal, actually, Boyle notes, which makes sense because this was her quest and now it’s her brother and Windshire Elite, so he sits back and briefly regrets not staying in bed with Ingrid as the clock ticks past midnight.

Lars emerges in his voluminous sorcerer robes as Te’ijal finishes up her side of the story, and he sits down next to Rhen as she says, “Well, we knew we wouldn’t stay out of the Oracle’s eye forever. I suppose we should count ourselves lucky that she hasn’t struck sooner.”

“Through Windshire Elite, though, really,” Lars says with an elegant snort. How he does this is a mystery Boyle has no interest in solving. He’s far more concerned with the fact that Fang is trying to eat his boot. “She’s desperate if she’s using those brutes to get her message across.”

“And blackmailing your brother, no less,” Rhen says to Te’ijal.

“I think it’s bribing,” Boyle says without thinking, scratching Fang to distract him from his boot. Te’ijal gives him a dirty look but doesn’t say anything.

“Whatever it is, we want to lock Gyendal down as quickly as possible,” Rhen says without batting an eye. “He’s the path that leads directly to you, and then directly to us. Te’ijal, do you know where he is?”

“Not yet,” Te’ijal says sullenly. “He didn’t take his phone with him, wherever he went. I’ll have to break into his apartment to start tracking.”

Boyle sighs. Lars gives him a look and says, “I’ll send some feelers out for you. Might make your job a little easier.”

“I’m not good at physically tracking people,” Boyle says in weak protest, because it’s true, he isn’t. Lars continues giving him a look, though, and Boyle sighs again and says, “I’ll track Gyendal’s magical residue, fine. Te’ijal, take me with you when you go pay him a visit.”

“Thanks, Boyle,” Te’ijal says, which is such a rare thing to hear from her that it’s all Boyle can do to keep his facial features schooled into something approximating neutrality.

“And who’s this?” Rhen says, focusing her attention on Robin. “Looks like a Crusader to me.”

“Just a squire,” Robin says unhelpfully.

“Just a squire,” Rhen repeats. She looks him over. “Where’s your sword, Crusader? Even squires get one.”

“Oh, well,” Robin says, a hand reaching up to scratch the back of his neck, “I’m—well, I’m not squired to a knight yet.”

Rhen raises an eyebrow. “You’re a page?”

“They don’t have pages,” Lars says. His smile is mean and razor-thin. “You’re not a Crusader. You’re just a boy working for them, safe under their emblem.”

“Um,” Robin says. Despite himself, Boyle feels a little bad; it’s not like Robin has any idea who he’s talking to the most dangerous archmage and sword singer in the country. John, meanwhile, is just laughing to himself in the corner of the couch, though he shuts up when Lars raises an eyebrow at him.

“What’s your name?” Rhen asks. Robin gives it. “Robin,” she repeats softly to herself, and she says, “How old are you, Robin?”

“I’m nineteen.”

There’s a pause, just a breath of a heartbeat: Robin is by far the youngest person in this room, and Boyle watches as Rhen’s features soften. “We appreciate what you’re doing for us. It won’t go unpaid.”

“And we pay very, very well,” Lars says. Somehow he makes this menacing.

“Oh,” Robin says. His voice is very small, and Rhen turns her attention to Rowen.

“And you?” Rhen says. “John’s told me a bit about you. Rowen, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Rowen says, sounding nonplussed. She’s also propped on the back of the armchair Boyle’s seated in, almost as if to use him as a meat shield. “Galahad took me on. I’m not from here.”

“I know. We don’t see many elves this far south,” Rhen says, unimpressed. She turns to Galahad. “I trust your judgment.”

“I’m keeping an eye on her,” Galahad says stoically. Strange, a little, Boyle thinks; Rhen seems far less interested in Rowen than she is with Robin. Then again, it’s not every day he brings an apparently fake(?) Crusader into a place like this.

“See that you do,” Rhen says, and Myst giggles as she turns to Boyle now. “You’re in charge of this op, Boyle.” He opens his mouth to protest, but shuts it when she explains, “Lars and I need to investigate a few leads on our own end. Mel’s been hearing whispers about Darkthrop again and we can’t be too careful.”

“Understood,” he says instead. He’s always been more of a lone wolf than a team player, let alone a leader, but if he can get Ingrid to help him, he’ll have some more ground to stand on. “Though I reserve the right to call you in a panic if the Oracle comes to kill us.”

“Obviously,” Lars says. “It’d be a nice excuse to get rid of her, anyway.”

“Lars,” Rhen says, giving him a disapproving look. “We need her where she is for a reason. We only need to get her to leave us alone, not to kill her.”

This is something that Boyle doesn’t want to hear about or know in the case that they try to make him do something about it. “Well, it’s pretty late, and I’m beat,” he says, hoisting himself to his feet. He’d wait for Rhen’s dismissal, but it’s true: he’s exhausted. Too much walking. “C’mon Myst, Robin. Let’s get some sleep.”

“What about—”

“I really want to sleep, Te’ijal,” Boyle says, heading towards the door, Fang at his heels. Myst and Robin are gathering their things to follow him. “We can work on it after I’ve gotten some shut-eye.”

“Crusader, hold on a moment,” Rhen says, and Robin stops and turns to look at her, only to blink when Rhen unclips the sword at her waist and hands it to him sheathed. It’s one of her favorites, Boyle realizes, and he has no idea what it means when Robin gingerly takes the Sword of Light and she pats his arm and says, “Use it wisely. Good luck.”

“Oh, uh, okay,” Robin says, confused and afraid.

“Rhen?” Lars says, but she shakes her head and Boyle doesn’t ask.

* * *

“It’s beautiful,” Robin says as soon as they’ve made it to the apartment. Boyle doesn’t live far from the penthouse, thankfully, and they all sit around and stare at the blade Rhen had given him. “I can’t keep this, can I? It looks—valuable.”

“It’s the only one of its kind,” Boyle says softly. He’s not brave enough to touch it. In the dark of the room, the soft golden light it emanates casts sharp shadows against the walls. “Irreplaceable.”

“Priceless,” Myst says in agreement. “Your own sword, Robin. For some reason, Rhen wanted to give this to you.”

Robin stares at the Sword of Light for a little while longer before shaking his head. “I don’t even know how to use this.”

“So you’re not really a Crusader?” Boyle asks.

“No, I—I am,” Robin says, avoiding eye contact. “I just—they thought I was too, um. They just put me as a stable boy, a servant, stuff like that.”

“They thought he was too nice and too trusting,” Myst supplies when Robin trails off. Boyle nods; he can see how that could’ve happened. He’d thought the same thing, too.

“Rhen gave this to you for a reason,” Boyle says. “She never does things without one. Maybe with this, the Crusaders will change their mind.”

To his surprise, though, Robin shakes his head. “They’d just take the sword from me.”

“What?” Myst says, bristling.

“If it’s as important as you’re both saying it is,” Robin says softly, “then I either have to return it and go back, or not go back at all.”

“I see,” Boyle says. “You’ve never handled a sword in your life?”

“No,” Robin says. “Never.”

Then why would Rhen have given him a sword? And why this sword in particular? _What if_ , Boyle thinks suddenly, remembering how Rhen’s movements changed with whatever sword of power she was using, the musical tonality of her voice; _what if he’s one of_ them. “Roof should be open right now,” Boyle says, getting up. “I can teach you some basic stances.”

“ _You_?” Myst says, eyes wide. “Boyle, since when could you use a sword?”

“I can’t, not very well,” Boyle says, shrugging off his heavy cloak and leaving it draped on the back of a chair. “But I know the basic stances. Before I came into magic, it was something I learned.”

“Oh,” Myst says. “Can I come watch?”

“Yeah, sure. I can’t do what Rhen can, but it’s a start, at least,” Boyle says to Robin, who nods and gets to his feet.

“Thank you, sir,” Robin says, and together the three of them go outside the room and follow the halls towards the rooftop.

* * *

Boyle’s hypothesis is wrong, as it turns out, but that just proves a different theory when Galahad draws Boyle aside after Rowen picks them up and drops them off at Te’ijal’s apartment, expression grave. “That boy,” he says to Boyle, gesturing to Robin, “is he…?”

Boyle nods. He’d seen it in the unnatural grace and lightness of Robin’s movements last night: Robin might not be a sword singer, but he could still bring out the power of the Sword of Light. Rhen had seen something in him they had all missed, peered past and into Robin’s faith in his friends.

“I see,” Galahad says. His blue eyes glint with something unknowable. “It has been millennia since I’ve taken on a squire. No time like the present.”

“He’ll a good student,” Boyle says, glancing over to where Robin laughs as Myst and John mess around on the couch, shoving each other and cackling. “He’ll make a good paladin.”

There’s a ghost of a smile on Galahad’s face as he says, “Reminiscing about your own Crusader days?”

“Don’t remind me, Galahad,” Boyle says, unable to stop himself from snorting on a laugh. “That was out of necessity. They don’t want me back, believe me.”

“Oh, I know,” Galahad says, and then he nods and Boyle goes back to the group and it’s like nothing has changed at all, but Boyle knows now that against the fight against the Oracle, the balance—infinitesimally—has shifted. Paladins are few and far in-between these days, and to train under Galahad Teomes is a gift like no other.

* * *

Paladins don’t have to have connections to any otherworldly figure to be godly: Galahad’s skill and prowess come from lifetimes of training, not divine right. But there’s always just a little bit of wrongness with him, something that makes Boyle instinctively duck away. The sheen of his armor, the perfection of every motion and expression, the way his blade flits through the air—that’s not something even the most well-trained swordsman can imitate, and Boyle’s known Galahad long enough to see echoes of what Robin could be in Robin’s fledgling swings.

There’s not much time to pursue it, at any rate, or at least it’s straight back to work as Boyle bids the rest of them farewell after Rowen drops him and Te’ijal off at Gyendal’s apartment. It’s the middle of the day, so naturally the streets of Ghed’hare are empty, and he and Te’ijal are quiet as Fang romps up the stairs ahead of them to sit in front of Gyendal’s door. Locked, of course, though Te’ijal picks her way in without any fanfare, and the two of them plus dog step inside to find it dark and empty.

“Air’s thin,” Boyle says. He can hardly detect any trace of magic, which is odd; the bracelets Gyendal wears bleed a magical aura that lasts for weeks at a time.

“Smells like blood,” Te’ijal says, moving with sharp, intent purpose. Boyle follows her. Fang sniffs around the kitchen, whuffing to himself as he goes, and Te’ijal opens a door that leads to what looks to be a study. The walls are lined with bookshelves and an empty desk sits underneath one window, which is ajar. “Bastard,” Te’ijal growls, bounding towards the desk and leaning out the window. “He must’ve seen us coming.”

“Air’s thin,” Boyle repeats, rolling his eyes when Te’ijal snaps a look at him. “No magic, Te’ijal. He’s either got his bracelets off already, or he hasn’t been in here for weeks.”

“What? But that’s impossible. Ulf’s still abroad.”

“Look, I’m not saying it makes sense, I’m just telling you how it is—”

Fang barks from the other room: he’s found something. Te’ijal says, “I’m going to look around in here.”

“Sure,” Boyle says, turning and going back through the door. Fang is snuffling at something on the floor, though he looks up and whuffs softly at Boyle when Boyle crouches down next to him. “What’d you find, boy?”

Fang whuffs again, gently tapping a cupboard with his snout. Boyle’s attempt to open it ends in failure when the handle snaps off. “Locked, too,” Boyle mutters, pressing his fingers to his chin and looking down at the handle. He presses his fingers against the wood and tries prying open the cupboard that way without any luck. “Maybe he has a screwdriver somewhere?”

Te’ijal finds him a few minutes later with a knife, trying to leverage it and snap the door open. “Gods, I forget you have the constitution of a wet kitten,” she says, nudging him aside and wrenching the cupboard’s door clean off of its hinges. “What’s in there, anyway? Did Fang smell some meat or—”

Her words die in her throat when they both peer inside. On the shelf sits two bracelets, each cracked in half, and Te’ijal reaches inside a pulls out a slip of paper that simply reads _Better luck next time._

* * *

They comb through Gyendal’s apartment after that and come up empty-handed. All that’s left to find is the bracelets, the note, and some stray credit card bills in Gyendal’s desk, which Lars will appreciate. Then they sit together at the apartment complex’s entrance, waiting for Rowen to drive back and pick them up, and Te’ijal rubs her eyes and mutters, “Rhen’s going to kill me.”

Fang leans up to rest his head on Te’ijal’s legs and snuffles at her. She pets him absently, scratching him under his ears. “You couldn’t have known,” Boyle says, which is a true statement. No one in a million years would have thought Gyendal would find a way to break his bracelets; Rhen is likely to be forgiving.

“Still,” Te’ijal mutters, resting her hand on Fang’s neck. Fang lets out a low sound in his throat and settles down beside her. “I thought he was smarter than conspiring with the Oracle. With Windshire fucking Elite of all things. He’s going to get himself killed.”

Boyle thinks about it for a while. Gyendal’s involvement in the Darkthrop incident had been resolved before he joined Rhen’s little crew, so he didn’t know much about him. Boyle did know, however, that being severed from one’s own magic is cruel and barbaric. He had no idea what he would do in that situation. Well, aside from watch television.

“It’s strange,” Te’ijal says. “Even after all of this, he’s my brother, and I don’t want him to get hurt. We’re more alike than I like to think about. I was just the one who fell in with the right crowd.”

“We’ll just have to move fast, then,” Boyle says. He ticks off each item as he says, “First we get the rest of the druids. Then we get your sunblock. Then we figure out what the Oracle’s up to, we find your brother, and then we kick Windshire Elite butt. Not necessarily in that order.”

“If only it was that easy,” Te’ijal says, shaking her head. “I really just wanted to get sunblock, you know. Get it the first day, take the next two weeks off, hang out with Galahad. Instead I get my runaway brother traipsing around the place with fucking Windshireans and the Oracle’s out to kill us.”

“Well, yeah,” Boyle says. “Just trying to cheer you up. Sorry for trying.”

She huffs a laugh. “You should know better than that by now.”

“Hey, got you to laugh,” Boyle points out, smiling when she laughs again. “But you’re right, it’s not going to be easy.”

“Least you’re all obligated to help me.”

“Tragic, isn’t it,” Boyle says with a sigh, laughing as she swats his shoulder and Fang barks, and then a car pulls up to the curb and they both look up to see Rowen frantically motioning them over. Te’ijal’s already slid into the backseat by the time Boyle’s opened the door for shotgun, and Rowen barely leaves him time to close it behind him before she hits the gas.

“Hey, guys!” Myst says, one hand pressed against Robin’s side. Boyle glances down and sees the dark red saturating Robin’s hoodie; the boy is covered in a thin sheen of sweat and doesn’t appear to be conscious. “Good news is that we got the seal!”

“And bad news is that we got jumped on our way out,” Rowen says grimly. “Windshire is on to us.”

Boyle remembers John’s text and pulls out his phone. “Kid’s okay?”

“Stabilized,” Myst confirms. “He just passed out because seeing his own blood freaked him out.”

“Oh, but all the blood from the vampire in the alley was fine?” Boyle says. Myst nods, looking about as confused about it as he feels. “I love it when nothing makes sense.”

“Good thing you were with them, Myst,” Te’ijal says. Boyle tunes the rest of the conversation out as he starts to text Rhen.

_Windshire jumped us at druid of agriculture. Something you want to look into?_

_Already on it_ , Rhen responds almost instantly, so quickly Boyle can’t help a small, surprised noise. _John’s been digging around. I’ll let you know when we find something._

“Something up?” Rowen asks, turning left. Going to his apartment, Boyle thinks.

“Some of our people are looking into things,” Boyle says, texting Rhen a quick affirmative before putting his phone away. “None of us expected it to become this dangerous so quickly, but at least now we know that the Oracle is a threat we need to eliminate, lethally or otherwise.”

Rowen doesn’t say anything for a while. Boyle doesn’t think much of it until Te’ijal speaks up from the back. “Having doubts?”

“No,” Rowen says, almost thoughtful. Boyle’s about to ask her if she’s lying to him until she muses, “I think I need to get something other than a wrench to defend myself, though.”

“Yeah, that might be smart,” Te’ijal says with a short laugh. Boyle shakes his head, unable to help a small smile, and settles in for the ride home.

* * *

Ingrid’s awake when they get back, surprisingly enough given how late her meetings are, and she gives Robin one look before she tuts and says, “He really isn’t a threat at all, is he?”

“He will be,” Boyle says, lowering his voice as Myst settles Robin onto the pullout bed. “He’s got the makings of a paladin like Galahad. Terrible luck, really.”

“Gods, just what we need,” Ingrid says crossly. Fang shuffles away towards the kitchen, and soon enough, Boyle can hear him clattering about his kibble bowl. “Well, sit him down, then, let’s get him cleaned up. You’d think the Crusaders would be more worried about one of their own, letting him run around like this.”

Robin finally wakes up after Ingrid tips a hastily-made health potion down his throat, after which he sits up with a gasp and says something in a language Boyle doesn’t recognize, though it burns his ears a little. Myst says, “Wow! What was that?”

“What?” Robin says, dazed. He coughs a little and accepts the glass of water Ingrid brusquely shoves into his hands. “Oh, thank you, miss Ingrid.”

“I haven’t been called ‘miss’ in years, whelp,” Ingrid says, giving him a light slap upside the head. He lets out a little _oof_ while Myst bats Ingrid’s hand away. “But you’re welcome. Welcome to the best and worst years of your life, especially if you’re training under that old crusty knight of ours.”

“Galahad?” Robin says, at the same time that Boyle says, “He’s more shiny than crusty.”

“ _So_ shiny,” Myst agrees.

Ingrid rolls her eyes. “Glad you’re all having fun out there, getting stabbed by—what happened, exactly?”

“Windshire Elites,” Myst says. “They were waiting for us and tried to kill us after we left the druid of agriculture and—”

“Windshire Elite, you say?” Ingrid says, a slow, menacing smile spreading across her face. It warms Boyle’s cold heart to see it; he admires her very, very much. And he admires that she’s turned many a Windshire Elite thug into a frog in the past. “I didn’t think they’d show their faces again. Perhaps I’ll come with you next time, Myst.”

“Sure!” Myst says cheerfully, which is when Boyle notices that Robin has huddled in on himself and squished himself into a corner of the couch.

Myst and Ingrid chatter away, unnoticing, and for a while Boyle simply watches. Rhen had told him once that she’d been cast as a hero at an age so young that she hadn’t known how to say no, that the Oracle had taken advantage of her naïveté to accomplish the tasks the Oracle couldn’t do herself; is this the same thing? By using Robin to get the druids’ seals, are they committing the same crime that turned Rhen to the underground?

Robin looks so very small in his little corner of the couch. Boyle, after a few moments of trepidation, brushes past Ingrid and Myst to sit next to him, and he says, “Are you alright, Robin?” His voice is gentler than even he was expecting. Robin stiffens and doesn’t answer, and Boyle reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder and says, “Robin?”

Robin flinches away from him, and suddenly there’s a pit in Boyle’s stomach. Things are starting to click, now: a would-be paladin in the Crusaders shuffled to gruntwork, punished for his kindness in an attempt to rid him of it. Robin is the type to be taken advantage of without even knowing it, to let his boundaries be crossed and his decisions be made for him—it’s no wonder at all that Rhen peered past and saw the truth while the rest of them were blind. She had been looking at a reflection of herself, and Myst, ever perceptive, must have picked up on it unconsciously. She’d always been drawn to good things, Boyle thinks, and Robin, curled up and afraid, has goodness in spades.

“Sorry,” Boyle says, withdrawing his hand. He whistles instead for Fang, who bounds up to him with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. Myst and Ingrid have moved to the kitchen to prepare tea or something, he hadn’t been paying too close attention. “Here, have my dog. He’s a good listener.” Fang whuffs softly in agreement, and Boyle heaves himself to his feet. Gods, he’s tired. His old bones aren’t meant for this much running around. “I’m going to head to bed for a powernap, but if you need anything, just get Myst to wake me up.”

Robin just nods, unfurling a little bit so Fang can prop his head on Robin’s thighs and settle in. Boyle bids Ingrid and Myst to wake him up in an hour and freshens up in the bathroom before collapsing into bed. Hopefully nothing will go out of control while he’s out.

* * *

He wakes up to fourteen unread texts. Seven are from Te’ijal, six from Rowen, and one from Rhen, which he reads first: _Windshire’s deployed at the druids of wisdom, time, and dreams. Dameon’s MIA. Proceed with caution._

“Fuck,” he says out loud, tapping to look at the texts from Rowen, because he likes Rowen better. The first reads _BOYLE_ , followed by _my old master’s found me and he’s on my ass_. Twenty minutes after that, she’d sent _ok I lost him but if it’s cool can I crash at your place tonight so he doesn’t kidnap me again_ , and another ten minutes passed before she’d added, _*try to kidnap me_. He scrolls down to see she’d sent him two separate emojis of a puppy and then of hands clasped in prayer.

 _Are you okay and/or in danger right now?_ he texts back as he forces himself out of bed. He didn’t sign up for taking more random strangers under his wing, but Myst had done this to him, too. Maybe he should’ve seen it coming.

Rowen doesn’t answer right away, so he goes to check Te’ijal’s texts. Most echo what Rhen had sent, but the last two are different; the first reads _Galahad’s headed to your apartment, I’m not sure why_ , and the second reads _heading out at 20:00 tonight for WI, be ready._

He texts an affirmative to Te’ijal and a quick note of thanks to Rhen. Rowen still hasn’t answered, but it says she’s typing, and he pushes out of his and Ingrid’s shared bedroom to find the apartment empty, save for Fang snoring on the pullout bed and the clinking from Ingrid’s potion room. There’s a note on the fridge when he goes to check, though: _on roof with Galahad! brb._

“Myst’s handwriting is terrible,” Boyle tells Fang, who opens one eye, woofs softly in agreement, and then rolls over and dozes off again. Regardless, he pulls on his cloak, gathers his belongings and pocket change, and then clicks for Fang before locking the door behind them. Then it’s up the stairs to the roof, and he pushes out the door and holds it open for Fang to find Galahad guiding Robin through a stance that Boyle doesn’t recognize. Swordplay, obviously, but nothing he was ever taught.

“Over here!” Myst says, waving, and Boyle walks over to her and accepts her offering of half a cookie. Her personal stash, it seems; no one in their household buys double-chocolate chip cookies, anyway. “Sleep well?”

“Like the dead,” Boyle says, remaining standing. There’s not much point to him staying here, so no sitting for him. “You whippersnappers are leaving me in the dust.”

“You can’t say that when Galahad is here,” Myst says, pouting. She brightens a moment later, though, and says, “but look! Galahad’s taken Robin on as a squire!”

“I see that,” Boyle says, looking towards the two. Galahad meets his eye for a heartbeat before looking back to Robin, who looks more determined and less afraid than an hour ago. “Well, we’ve got a few hours before duty calls, so I’m going to take Fang for a walk. You staying here?”

“Yeah,” Myst says. “Just in case they need, you know, healing or something.”

“Sounds good. Keep your phone on you,” Boyle says, heading towards the stairs with a wave to Galahad and Robin. Robin returns it cheerily, and Boyle might have said something except his phone buzzes, so he pulls it out to look.

 _Yes_ is Rowen’s answer to his question. His brow furrows; he quickens his pace, and then Rowen texts him again. _I’m in front of your apartment._

 _Omw_ , he texts back, and to Fang, he says, “Go down and make sure Rowen’s being left alone.” Fang barks and races down the stairs, and Boyle prays that it’s enough as he breaks into a run.

* * *

Fang is in the middle of chasing what looks to be an old man around Rowen’s car when Boyle makes it down to the street. Rowen is ducked down in the driver’s seat, protecting her head, and with a snap of magic and a quick, sharp word, the old man is frozen in place mid-run. Fang gets low and growls at him as Boyle steps up to Rowen’s window and taps it; when she opens it, he says, “You okay?”

“Been better,” she says. Even though she sounds cheerful enough, he can see the fear in her too-big green eyes. “The only reason he caught me like this was because he had a taxi chase after me.”

“Only in this city,” Boyle says with a sigh. He motions to the old man, whose eyes are darting around but is otherwise motionless. “Do you want me to kill him?”

“Kill—what? No! He’s just desperate, Boyle, that doesn’t make him _bad_.”

“He enslaved you for money.”

“Okay,” Rowen admits, “that’s pretty bad. But that doesn’t mean you should kill him.”

“Why not?” Boyle says, ignoring the strangled noises coming from the old man. He’s wearing some strange, old-style mystic robes that he probably bought in a thrift store; Boyle’s dying to know what led Rowen to his service when he so obviously doesn’t know any magic at all. “It’ll save you a problem. And probably save other hapless would-be slaves, too.”

Rowen sighs. “You really are a villain.”

“Yeah, I mean,” Boyle says, “Boyle the Horrible and everything, you know. That wasn’t just for funsies.”

“Don’t kill him, Boyle. Come on. It’s not worth it.”

Boyle rolls his eyes but releases the spell. The old man lands in heap on the ground behind Rowen’s car, sputtering and flinching away from Fang snarling in his face. “No wonder you and Myst get along,” he tells Rowen while Fang chases the man off, properly this time. “Go and park the car. You can come watch Robin practice swordplay until we go gallivanting off later tonight for more seals.”

He ignores how she sighs in relief, mostly to let her save some face, and only grunts when she says, “Thank you, Boyle,” and drives off. Ingrid always told him he was a lousy villain, but it kind of hurts a bit, he thinks as he whistles for Fang, for her to be right as always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> INTRIGUE. also i added another chapter to the mix bc i think i'm going to need that much. Y E E T
> 
> also the windshire elite are based off the witch hunter people in av4, in case you're like "where tf did these people come from" lol. 
> 
> EDIT: HEY [mx. ishti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishti/works) made art for this fic [PLEASE LOOK IT IS GORGEOUS AF](https://www.deviantart.com/jokerfae/art/sundown-showdown-slowdown-846187858)


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